Vincent swung the knocker into the door twice. Then we waited shoulder to shoulder in the hall for his coworker to open up.

I expected Mac to be groggy from sleep or at the very least slowed down by fatigue considering the time of night. Because of that, I thought I’d have a second to try and get Vincent to answer my question on what exactly we were doing at Detective Mac’s apartment. He hadn’t made it seem like it was official business and though my previous interactions with Mac indicated he was a friendly person, I didn’t like the idea of seeing outside of the context of the investigation. It was already hard enough to keep my relationship with Vincent categorized as work related. If I was being honest with myself, I had called Vincent earlier in the night not with the motivation of relaying useful information to him but for comfort.

Mac did not take very long to open the door though, leaving me without opportunity for further inquiry. I was left in the dark about what we were doing.

Around Mac's shoulders was a purple blanket he wore like a cape. He had on similar attire to Vincent, a button up and slacks but made it his own by pairing it with socks that had kittens on them. I had thought his french bulldog socks from my first encounter with him might have been a gag gift he wore for good humor but perhaps Mac was quirky enough to pick out the socks for himself.

"You've brought the girl!" he exclaimed in a gremlin voice, pressing his fingers together with a hunched back.

Vincent cringed. "I . . . have?"

We stepped into the apartment and Mac gave a slight bow in my direction. As if someone had hit pause on his strange behavior, he straightened and gave me a polite smile. “It’s good to see you again, Mickey. I hear you're being very helpful to the case.”

“Thanks,” I said, caught between the two conflicting worlds. I didn’t know whether to keep the professionalism I was inclined to or if I should lean into the causal air that buzzed around the mid century modern apartment. In a humorous sense, I got the feeling that I had walked into a trap. The trap being that if Vincent had been blunt with me about what we were doing, I may not have agreed to come. 

"Come in, princess,” Mac said, cycling his hands to beckon me further into the apartment. When Vincent scowled at him, he clarified. “I'm not being creepy. Tonight Mickey is playing as a princess. Usually I let people have more say in their roles but tonight must go perfectly."

I shot Vincent a look. He bashfully hung his coat up and scurried further into the apartment before I could grill him.

Mac inspected my expression and then snapped, pointing at me with a smirk. “He didn’t tell you we were playing Dungeons and Dragons.”

The game was familiar to me only because Julio had joined an afterschool club that played board games in middle school. The most popular one was Dungeons and Dragons but it would only go well for the group of students when Julio was the dungeon master. No one knew the rules like he did. I had never played it with him but I had caught fragments of the game from his child-like ramblings.

"Hi Mickey.” A woman with thick, brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail appeared under the archway leading to the kitchen. Her eyebrows were arched in a fashion that made her appear angry though her thin lips were forming a smile. She walked with such perfect posture that I felt myself straightening my own back.

“I’m Mac’s girlfriend Kyra. I’m also a detective at the station but I’m not assigned to your case,” she said, holding out her hand for me to shake. Her voice was deep and rich but had the same cadence of an early cinema star.

I shook her hand, taken aback by how strong her grip was.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Want something to drink? I have soda, coffee or water."

"Soda is fine,” I answered as Mac rushed between us to collect the Dungeons and Dragons box from the shelf. His makeshift cape floated behind him like a sail. Kyra seemed unphased by it, simplifying lifting an eyebrow as if to say, that’s Mac for you.

I followed Mac into the kitchen where Vincent was clearing the dining table. He took a tentative step towards me, rolling his sleeves up as if preparing for a fight.

“So, now that you know what you’re doing here . . .”

“Do I want to kill you?” I finished for him. “No. No, I do not.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief before pulling out a chair for me. “Good. I thought this would be the best distraction for you. You’ll see what I mean.”

Kyra promptly returned with a plastic cup filled with Coke and handed it to me. She had her own mug filled to the top with steaming black coffee and poured a second mug full for Vincent.

“Mickey seems like a smart girl,” Kyra said to her boyfriend. “Give her the shortened version of the instructions. She’ll catch on as we’re playing.”

“It’s alright if you don’t get it at first,” Vincent said. “I still don’t fully understand it.”

As Vincent turned away to straighten out the board and cards, Kyra gave me a pointed look.

"He's lying,” she whispered.

Mac was far more animated and brighter than I thought a line of work like criminal investigation would want. His mullet of sunny hair bounced around as he eagerly explained the rules, his voice the opposite of monotone. He did such a good job of delivering the basic rules that I was convinced this game was going to be the most fun experience of my life.

“To save time we will all have the same roles we did last time we played,” Mac said, setting out three dice that had an abundant amount of sides. “I am the Dungeon Master, Kyra will be an elfling, and Vincent will be a warrior. Mickey, you will be a princess as I told you earlier.”

“What special abilities does the princess have?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. Nothing too exciting came to mind when I thought of the stereotypical princess. Besides, if I was going to embark on this escape from reality, I wanted to be less helpless than I was in reality.

Mac clasped his hands together and bit his lip. “I will be honest with you, dear friend. The princess is not the most powerful of roles but you can revive the warrior character with a kiss and threaten enemies with your status as royalty.”

Kyra snorted.

“There will be more abilities you can unlock later on. This is a good role for a beginner,” Mac assured me. “And you’ll get to be referred to as a princess all night!”

I couldn’t help but giggle at Mac’s hopeful wide eyed gaze. 

“Fair enough.”

As the game took off, I realized why Mac had insisted that I be the princess. It became obvious that he had planned on a story for the game, one that required my role. I admired how well he crafted the tale. The exposition was solid, drawing us in with a good hook that put our adventure in context without being a bore. He built tension as we continued, sprinkling in little battles to familiarize us with the rules and strategies. By the time we’d reached the climax, I was convinced Mac was an excellent storyteller. Perhaps that was what made him a good detective.

I was about to tell Mac I wanted to roll to see if I could revive Vincent when he placed his horrible reading glasses on his head and stopped me. I had almost forgotten he used them.

“It’s time to pull your own weight here,” he said, with the most expressive tone I’d heard him use since knowing him. Kyra was right when she implied Vincent was familiar with the game. He was eating all of this up. “The warrior or elf won't always be around to help you. We could fall into a chasm or get split up in a cave and get separated.”

“But I don’t have many abilities.” 

“Use what you have,” he replied and then chuckled as he became aware of how intense he had sounded. Kyra was shaking her head to herself, as if she was above it all but I knew better. She was entirely too strategic about her moves to have not been interested in the game.

I shrugged and turned to address Mac who was watching intently. “Fine. I’ll threaten the dragon with my status as princess.”

He rolled the dice. It landed on the number twenty: the highest roll possible.

He broke out into the biggest grin. It was so infectious that even Kyra was smirking.

“It works! Turns out the dragon is a fan of the royal family. He apologizes and offers to give the party a ride to their next destination!” Mac cried victoriously.

Vincent lifted both his arms in the air. “Yes!”

I couldn't help but watch him as he gave Mac a fist bump to celebrate the victory. From the first moment I met Vincent, I had always wondered about him. There was something alluring about a person who kept to themselves, who didn’t rush to show all their cards or tell people who they were. It tapped into that basic human longing to understand, to categorize. The more I got to know Vincent, the less I could label him as a stone faced detective. He was much more than that. The more he showed me, the more I wanted to see.

Inviting me out, not to pour over the case but to simply be a part of his world, was crossing a boundary in our partnership. It wasn’t his job to comfort me or distract me. That was a friend’s job. And though I had begun to see him in this light earlier on, this night felt like a consecration of it.

When Vincent dropped me off back at home, the horizon was tinged in orange.

“Hey,” he said. I paused where I was. I had grabbed hold of the car door’s handle, ready to sneak back inside. The windows were down and a stray breeze tousled the strands that had come loose from my braid.

“I had a fun time tonight.”

“I did, too.” I lingered for a moment longer, unable to detach my eyes from his. It was a weird feeling of magnetism that beckoned me to sit back in my seat, to not leave his radius just yet. At first, I thought Vincent had felt the unnamable sensation too. He was leaning towards me as if to make up for the space I had traveled away from him. But then he sat back, averting his gaze to the road ahead of him. I took my cue and left the sweet smell of coconut and pineapple behind, hastening to get back inside undetected.

As my hand grazed the doorknob, I noticed red spots on my fingertips. I jerked my hand away and let my keys fall onto the fuzzy welcome mat. The doorknob was flecked in red.

Blood.

There was blood on my hands and on the door knob.

A strangled cry too quiet to be heard escaped my throat. I held my hand up to my face.

Not blood. It wasn’t blood. The sun’s reflection on the door’s brassy handle had created shiny orbs of orange light, darkened by the shadow of our porch.

I picked up the keys I had dropped, aware that Vincent had yet to pull away from my block.

When I unlocked the door, I was shaking. I trembled the whole journey to my room and trembled as I sat at the edge of my bed, inspecting my hand in the lamp light.

The more I stared, the more I swore I could see it.

Blood.